Furtive!

Ideas are furtive, evasive and volatile. The more exciting they are, the more they show up to tease you and then they hide. Here the simplest tip: in order to work creatively with your ideas, have a stack of letter size sheets close to your workspace to draft, note and sketch your ideas; and have another stack of 3 x 5 card for when you are on the go.

There are great tools like Evernote that allow you to capture your ideas (works great for taking a picture of something inspiring, on the fly for example), but I find that it's still hard to beat writing down your ideas and mental insights on a piece of paper. It's a simple idea that many have talked about before, but when I work with client, I am surprised to see that idea collection is still a relatively new concept, even in the most creative circles.

It's not that easy

I see friends and colleagues around me being overwhelmed by their will to create something meaningful in their professional and personal life while keeping a sense of control and pleasure. It's not something easy to do, but while reading this post by Mark McGuinness on 99percent, I decided to outline what would be for me the simplest way to draw the foundation for an authentic and creative modern life. Here it is:

• Understand the nature of workflow: In other words, explore to understand how anything in the world gets done and created. There are many perspective, but most often, it comes downs to something very similar. Observe how work evolves and unravels in your world and lear from people who pushed the observation further.
  
• Know what's on your plate: Do what you can to get the full picture of what you are committing yourself to, whether in your professional or your intimate life. My favorite example comes from David Allen's GTD approach.
• Review often: What is relevant for you today, might lose its relevance in a few weeks. It's obvious, but many of us continue to clog our inner creative space worrying about projects and goals that are obsolete.
  
• Don't wait, do!: It does not matter if you make mistakes. There is no better procrastination technics than to wait for the perfect iteration.
• Step back often too: As a way to balance our ability to jump and create, it is as valuable to be able to go to the balcony as Ronald Abadian Heifetz and Marty Linsky would encourage and creative leader to do. Whether you step back by regularly playing bowling or by contemplating in your backyard, insist on creating an environment and conditions that encourages you to develop your reflective mindset and your ability to transcend action. It's just another way to underline how much perspective is important and how intentional it is to develop that habit.
  

Managing as in getting things done!

Henry Minztberg, the author of the famous book "Managers, not MBA's" wrote in 2007 a prescient short article on the danger of the managing culture of contemporary America and of the Bush presidency in particular. It is instructive to know that President Bush has received an MBA in 1975 from Harvard University.

In short and crisp term, Mintzberg comments on the pitfalls of an MBA approach where confidence boosting is put forward without a real focus on competence and how it results, when managing (whether in strategy setting or in execution) in arrogance as oppose to humility in our leadership. This article is a short manifesto that puts managing, not as a profession or a science, but as a practice. I hope you enjoy the article that I find relevant for many of or leaders around the world.

Can organizations be creative and innovative if they struggle at creating a collaborative culture?

I have been interested for many years in the collaborative process that can take place in organizations and interrogating what makes collaborative efforts a success or a failure. I find this concept of collaborative increasingly appropriate for our time, because of the progressive integration of our systems, organizations, and to a greater degree, our world. We are realizing how much connection there is between us but we are still used to see ourselves in adversarial roles. So how do we foster creativity and collaboration and can we say that an organization that puts a lot of emphasize on creativity and innovation is by definition a collaborative entity?

From my observation, I believe that groups that puts a lot of energy in fostering creativity and innovation in there productive pipeline but who neglect setting and nurturing a sophisticate yet natural environment that promotes collaborative efforts, will inevitably affect seriously and incrementally over time its capacity for creativity. It might sound like evidence but I observe that it is a serious challenge for many so-called creative entities today. In a context where innovation itself has become one of the key element of our economy renewal, I will be exploring more aspects of this questions and hopefully receive your precious feedback.

These questions so far, when they are tackled at all, are very often explored within the strict concept of the enterprise and the business world. It is my intention to show that the implication of creativity, innovation and collaborative work are in fact elements that are crucial to the success and the exercise of power and politics in our contemporary world. Many of our institutions could benefit greatly from a serious injection of these elements in their form and content. We will talk more about this in another post.

I have included an interesting vidpost from Clay Shirky who gave an insightful talk at the edition of the world famous TED conference in Monterey (2005). It shows the limit of our current organization in relation to the contribution of individuals and shows the internal machinery of collaboration. It can feel a bit technical but bear with him if you can; his reflection is rich and sound.

Learning from the youngest

This is a funny and moving little reminder of how much there is to learn from our little ones!

David Allen's formative years

This a great article on David Allen (GTD) and his formative years. I posted this article earlier this year on my facebook profile. http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-10/ff_allen?currentPage=all

A changing world and Malcom Gladwell's interview

I read yesterday, a great interview that Malcolm Gladwell was giving in the business section of the Globe and Mail.

In this interview, Gladwell talks about the impact of technology, policy making, the link between corporations and public schools and how the changes happening now will force all of us to adapt in ways that we can only feel without clearly knowing.

http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071001.wrgladwell1001/BNStory/robNews/home/?pageRequested=all

I enjoyed reading the author of Blink and The Tipping point for his sharp, clear and original vision of what the future of our current work transformations might look like. Whoever is interested to learn more about how the meaning of work and the call to leadership, that each of our life calls for, will enjoy the path that Gladwell opens up and explore briefly.

In essence, he talks about the necessity for a shift in our training priority to accommodate more science base education (where are the maths?) but also how the shift from fixed place work to mobile, flexible context of work will force corporation to rethink the way they organize there workforce. I can asses that in many organization, leaders are still not psychologically ready to allow for more flexibility, more education and training and more patience for the people they select. It is also quite a confirmation of what has been known today as knowledge work (Peter Drucker), to explain our modern context of work where front-end (executive type of decision) are being made throughout the organization and not only by a handful "at the top", like this use to happen. And you can be sure that the amount of input that we are receiving today is nothing compare to what we will have to face (and our children) with the acceleration of information input. I find, that even today and around me, people don't seem to grasp fully the importance of that shift and what it means for our future, whether we are artists or accountants (OK, I guess you can be an artistic accountant, but those are rare!), freelance or employee.